If you do it any other time, prepare to fork over 75 pounds (about $144). No news on whether you could be fined if you're eating your lunch on a park bench, drop part of your sandwich, and a pigeon snaps it up.

But that situation is much more understandable than what's happened to a retired couple in Northumberland. After a neighbor complained, the Berwick Upon Tweed council told them that feeding wild birds is a noisy and dirty hobby and ordered them to quit putting out food for sparrows in their own yard.